Overige auteurs:
Heloise
(tekstdichter/librettist)
Leoninus
(op een thema van)
Toelichting:
Program note (English): "Now there dwelt in that same city of Paris a certain young girl named Heloïse, the neice of a canon who was called Fulbert... Of no mean beauty, she stood out above all by reason of her abundant knowledge of letters... It was this young girl whom I, after carefully considering all those qualities which are wont to attract lovers, determined to unite with myself in the bonds of love''. So begins a long letter from the twelfth century philosopher Abelard to a friend in which he describes the tragic events that were to unfold following that first meeting with Heloïse. Abelard himself was, by all accounts, handsome beyond comparison and his fame as a thinker went before him and gave him access to the intelligentsia of the day. He was thus able to take up residence in the Fulbert household ostensibly as the personal tutor of Heloïse but with the ulterior motive of seducing her. They fell in love and a scandal ensued. The pregnant Heloïse was sent to a convent for her own safetywhile Abelard was banished from the city. Fulbert, incensed more by the social ramifications of the scandal rather than any genuine concern for Heloïse's well-being sought revenge. Through the complicity of the philosopher's personal valet he entered Abelard's house one evening and attacked him as he lay sleeping and removed his genitalia - seen as the offending item. Abelard, deprived of his manhood, spent the rest of his days in a monastery. Abelard, on the relation between human freedom and Divine providence, asks the question: If God, who is omniscient, knows that we are going to perform a given act, is it not necessary that we perform it and how in that case can the act be free? His answer is seemingly straightforward: we do act freely and it is not merely our acts but our free acts which come under Divine Providence. God's foreknowing carries no implication that we are not free to perform them. The text is taken from the first letter of Heloïse to Abelard from the convent afterthe events described above. The music takes as a starting point a fragment of the Benedicta from the Magnus Liber de Graduli et Antiphonario of Leonin which would have been heard in Notre Dame during Heloïse's lifetime. She died in 1163.